"What are we going to do? Sit here quiet for the rest of our lives?" Pedro asked.
"You can do what you want," Jorge answered. "Me, I'm going to stay on the farm and see how things go. We have a crop this year, and that's enough for now. If things change later, if the United States make life too hard to stand…Then I'll worry about it. Not until."
"What kind of patriot are you?" his brother asked.
"A live one," Jorge answered. "That's the kind I want to go on being, too. Los Estados Confederados are dead, Pedro. Dead. I don't think they'll come back to life no matter what we do."
"You think we're beaten."
"Sн. That's right. Don't you?"
Pedro didn't answer. He stormed out of the farmhouse instead. Jorge started to go after him, then checked himself. His brother could figure out what was going on without him. Jorge hoped he could, anyhow.
T he Oregon cruised off the Florida coast. The weather was fine. It felt more like August than October to George Enos. Back home in Boston, the leaves would be turning and it would be getting cold at night. Everything stayed green here. He didn't think autumn would ever come.
All the same, he didn't want to stay stuck on the battleship the rest of his life. He wanted to get home to Connie and the boys. Fighting in a war was one thing. Yeah, you needed to do that; he could see as much. Occupation duty? As far as he was concerned, they could conscript somebody else for it.
He griped. Most of the sailors on the Oregon who weren't career Navy guys were griping. Griping let off steam, and did no other good he could see. Nobody who mattered would pay attention. Nobody who mattered ever paid attention to ratings. That was how the Navy operated.
"Hey, you sorry bastards are stuck," Wally Fodor said. "We can't just pretend the fucking Confederates'll be good little boys and girls, the way we did the last time around. We know better now, right?"
"All I know is, this ain't what I signed up for," George answered. "I got a family. My kids hardly remember who I am."
"As soon as you swore the oath and they shipped your sorry rear end to Providence, they had you. They had you but good," the gun chief said. "You might as well lay back and enjoy it."
"I've been screwed long enough," George said. "Too damn long, to tell you the truth. I want to go home. I'm not the only one, either-not even close. Congress'll pay attention, whether the brass does or not."
"Don't hold your breath-that's all I've got to tell you." Fodor gave what was much too likely to be good advice.
In the meantime, there was Miami, right off the starboard bow. If anybody got out of line, the Oregon's big guns could smash the city to bits. That was what battleships were good for nowadays: blasting the crap out of people who couldn't shoot back. In the Great War, they'd been queens of the sea. Now they were afterthoughts.
"Think we'll get liberty?" one of the shell-jerkers asked, a certain eagerness in his voice. Miami had a reputation almost like Habana's. Didn't hot weather produce hot women? That was how the stories went, anyhow.
George didn't know whether to believe the stories. He did know he'd been away from Connie long enough to hope to find out if they were true. He could hope it would be his last fling before he went back to his wife for good. That would help him feel not so bad about doing what he wanted to do anyway.
But Wally Fodor repeated, "Don't hold your breath. Besides, do you really want to get knocked over the head if you go ashore? They don't love us down here. Chances are they're never going to, either."
"Hey, I don't care about love," the shell-jerker said. "Long as I can get it in, that's good enough." Laughter said it was good enough for most of the gun crew.
They didn't get liberty. They did get fresh produce. Boats came alongside to sell the battleship fruit and meat and fish. Fresh orange juice and lemonade appeared in the galley. So did fresh peas and green beans, and salads with tender lettuce and buttery avocados and tomatoes and celery. The sailors ate fried shrimp and fried fish and spare ribs and fried chicken.
George had to let his belt out a notch. The chow beat the hell out of any Navy rations he'd had before. Bumboats brought out fresh water, too, enough so the crew didn't have to use seawater and saltwater soap when they showered. If that wasn't a luxury, he'd never known one. Peace had its advantages, all right.
He'd just stripped off his uniform to get clean when an enormous explosion knocked him ass over teakettle. "The fuck?" he said, which was one of the more coherent comments from the naked sailors.
Klaxons hooted. He ran for his battle station without thinking about his clothes. Bodies lay on the deck. He'd worry about them later. Right now, he had a job to do, and he could do it with pants or without. He wasn't the only naked man heading for duty-not even close.
Petty Officer Fodor had a cut on his face and another one on his arm. He didn't seem to notice either one. "They blew up a goddamn bumboat," he said. "Right alongside us, they blew up a goddamn bumboat."
"They're idiots if they did," George said. The Oregon, like any modern battleship, had sixteen-inch armor belts on either side to protect against gunfire and torpedoes. They weren't perfect, as the melancholy roll of torpedoed battlewagons attested. But they were a hell of a lot better than nothing. A blast that might have torn a destroyer in two dented the Oregon and killed and hurt people exposed to it without coming close to sinking her.
"This is the captain speaking!" the PA blared. "Odd-numbered gun stations, aid in casualty collection and damage assessment. Even numbers, hold your posts."
As the skipper repeated the order, George and the other men from his twin-40mm mount dashed off to do what they could for the sailors who hadn't been so lucky. There were a lot of them: anybody who'd been on deck when the bumboat exploded was down and moaning or down and thrashing or down and not moving at all, which was worst.
Some of the paint was burning. Men already had hoses playing on the fires. The stink made George's asshole pucker. When your ship got hit, that odor was one of the things you smelled. And he almost fell on his face skidding through a puddle of seawater from the fire-fighters.
He knelt by a burned man who was clutching his left shoulder. "C'mon, buddy-I'll give you a hand," he said.
"Thanks." The wounded sailor groped for him. "Sorry. I can't see a goddamn thing."
"Don't worry about it. The docs'll fix you up." George had no idea whether they could or not. The other man's face didn't look good, which was putting it mildly. "Your legs all right? I'm gonna get you on your feet if I can."
"Give it a try," the injured man said, which might have meant anything. He groaned and swayed when George hauled him upright, but he didn't keel over again. George got the fellow's good arm around his own shoulder. He also got blood on his own bare hide, but that was something to flabble about later.
Helping the other sailor down three flights of steep, narrow steel stairs when the poor guy couldn't see where to put his feet was an adventure all by itself. George managed. Other sailors and groups were carrying injured men and trying to get them down in stretchers without spilling them out.
In the sick bay and in the corridors outside it, the battleship's doctors and pharmacist's mates were working like foul-mouthed machines. One of the mates took a quick look at the sailor George had brought down. "Put him there with them," he said, pointing to a group of other men who were hurt but not in imminent danger of dying. "We'll get to him as soon as we have a chance to."
"Good luck, pal," George said as he eased the wounded sailor down. It was painfully inadequate, but it was all he could offer.